writing – Page 11 – Writing to Pray

Advent 4th Sunday 2014

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/122114.cfm

2 Sm 7:1-16; Rom 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

David wants to build a dwelling place for the Lord. This is thoughtful; he lives in a palace, and the Lord a tent. But the Lord seems to ignore this noble gesture of David’s; instead He focuses on His own affairs. He is little concerned about David’s grand gesture of love, gratitude and friendship, and much more interested in His own plans for gifting David with so much more. Perhaps He heard David and His own magnanimity was His response to David’s generous desire for praise, but He did not acknowledge it. The Lord God had moved on.

In the case of Mary, the Lord, speaking through Gabriel is also quite absorbed with the gift He is giving. He mentions the gift almost at once and continues with detailed description. The gift, of course, is His own Son.

We tell the Lord what we want and need, we listen to hear what He is inviting us to; we also express gratitude to Him when He has done for us what is helpful or needed, or has handled things better than we could have hoped for or imagined. I hope I express to Him the gratitude that spills out of my heart at all the wonderful things He gives and does for me; I try to be conscience to do right by these gifts, to use them wisely and for good. For an example, I love working as a LNA (Licensed Nursing Assistant) in a nursing home, often on a rehab unit. It is a gift from God and I try to perform my duties in a loving, compassionate way.
But the Lord, apparently, seems to think that David missed the point. I bet you, He thinks I have missed the point too! Jesus tells us the right and good, loving and compassionate thing to do, but scripture is not simply a moral handbook.

I once read Jane Austen’s Guide to Dating. Falling into gender roles, the author proposes it is the man’s role to please, and the woman’s role to be pleased. If we tolerate the blatant sexism, such an attitude in a relationship is applicable to many circumstances. It is not as easy or common as it sound to recognize when another is trying to please us and to be so passive as to simply allow ourselves to be pleased. This applies to our relationship with the Lord.

The manner in which the Lord God speaks to David and Mary demonstrates His desire to give beyond measure. He is an “Over-the-top” God, generous to a fault, I tell Him. While I feel gratitude, of course, He doesn’t give me gifts so I can express gratitude. If I can be so bold as to say, He gives me gifts as do human friends and parents, because he loves me and delights in delighting me.

I am competent, to some degree, at recognizing the gifts He bestows on me, but I think in my haste to express gratitude, I sort of skip the step of pleasure. I am meant to surrender to the joy of being delighted and knowing that it delights the Lord that I am delighted.

Reflection Questions: What could God be giving you that He is focused on and you are missing?

Writing Exercise: When have I allowed myself the pleasure of enjoying God’s gifts to me? When did I skip experiencing the pleasure and move right to expressing gratitude?

Art Exercise: Create using your preferred medium a piece that represents a gift of God’s that you enjoy.

Advent Third Sunday 2014

Is 61:1-2A, 10-11; 1 Thes 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121414.cfm

John and the Pharisee’s engage in a verbal exchange, I call the “me – not – me game.” Several years ago I taught SAT preparation at Sylvan Learning Center; in approaching the multiple choice questions, I taught the students to find the wrong answers and eliminate them. Following that, they would choose the best from what remained. Likewise John and Pharisees are ruling out, through the process of elimination all of who and what John is not.

John’s “I am not” statements foreshadow Jesus’ I Am statements. John is not the Messiah, Elijah or the Prophet. He is no one deserving a proper noun. He is “a voice,” not even “the voice.” I like to remember that John and Jesus were cousins. Given the closeness we already know between Elizabeth, John’s mother and Jesus’ aunt and Mary, Jesus’ mother and John’s aunt, they would have long known each other, I think. Perhaps they even played together as boys, or built things together out of wood in Joseph’s workshop.

Some resources call Jesus the “hidden Messiah” at this point in scripture, implying He was present but not recognized. John, however, would have recognized him from a lifetime of knowing Him. I think of John more as the “first Christian,” than as a “forerunner to Christ.” Because he is the first Christian, he is perhaps the first truly free person (aside from Christ Himself.) John is free from ego and self because he’s uninterested in his own identity; he’s focused only on the identity of Christ.

A long time ago I heard a presentation and read the book from the “Harvard Negotiation Project” entitled Difficult Conversations. They proposed three different conversations were embedded in what seemed like one; the first was the informational conversation, followed by the “feelings” conversation. They suggested the third conversation was the “identity” conversation and they suggested embedded in all conversations and interactions. “Given all the details, what does this exchange or situation about me?

Many of my own “I am” statements are roles; sister, friend, daughter, dog mom, nursing assistant, lector, etc. These are also factors in my identity. These roles relate either to what I do and say or they are descriptions of my personality and characteristic attitudes, values and motivations. For a long time, being of the world, I thought this perspective of the identity conversation was totally on the money, however, now, as a follower of Christ’s, it might be a bit off the mark.

If the world were all about me the question and perspective would make sense. But John shows me, the third conversation instead should be the “what does this say about the Lord and me” conversation. This conversation occurs between my heart and the Lord. Perhaps, as John points out, Jesus frees me from being a “proper noun,” from having an “identity” per se. Consequently, the paradigm shifts from questions about my identity to my relationship with and understanding of the Lord.

Jesus’ I Am statements are symbolic, metaphoric phrases communicating from His heart to our hearts the state of each soul in relation to the other. Any “i am” statements I settle upon will have to state the relationship between my soul and the Lord. I’m still working on the perfect metaphor. I’ll let you know!

Reflection Questions:
Write one paragraph to describe your identity. Explore how it breaks down into descriptions of roles and characteristics. What other elements are involved in your own identity? How do you feel about your identity? What is your identity to the Lord, do you think?

Writing Exercise:
Write about the “me-not-me game” that you have played throughout your life.

Art Exercise:
If you are a drawer or painter, depict a scene of John and Jesus together as boys. If you use fabrics or other materials, create a piece in which its identity is somehow connected to the Lord. For example, you may play with circle shapes as they symbolize unity, perfection and commitment.

Advent 2nd Sunday 2014

Is 40:1-5, 9-11; 2Pt 3:8-14; Mk 1:1-8 http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/120714.cfm

I was feeling guilty one day because I was late in picking up my eighty-five year old father and I hadn’t wanted him to wait. My sister said, “What are talking about? He waits all day; it is his occupation. He waits for someone to bring him pills, or take him to lunch, or call him on the phone. Most of the time he forgets what he is waiting for, he just knows he’s waiting.”

Barclay writes, “(John the Baptist’s) message was effective because he told people what in their heart of hearts they knew and brought them what in the depths of their souls they were waiting for.” In the context of our daily lives, we too forget what we are waiting for, namely Christ.

In this passage, Isaiah is telling the people to prepare for a return from exile. The Oxford Bible Commentary characterizes John’s message as an exhortation to prepare for a new Exodus and a renewed covenant between the people and their Lord. John’s clothes and behavior reminds us of Elijah, who spoke of new beginnings.

Because the Israelites crossed the Jordan to inherit Promised Land and John is baptizing in the same river, a rebirth is suggested yet again. In other words, these Old Testament passages, both in the first reading and those referred to in the gospel, point to a new fulfillment of an old notion or promise. So, I wait during Advent for a new beginning to fulfill an old promise from or dream of the Lord.

I am a different person than I was even last year with new experiences, thoughts and perceptions. My understanding of “I know not what I wait for,” is different than last year, or ever before. But waiting is not a stagnant whittling away of time, the growth and activities of preparation foreshadow what is to come. I just read an article on ‘Third World” Theology, and the author used three key words together; basileia, the new order; metanoia, interior conversion to it, and martyrion, overt commitment to it.

John calls people to a metanoia; however, he expects them to convert to the new order and make an overt commitment to it (baptism), before that new order has been established. They understand a change of heart is required for this “know not what,” and are open about committing to it, despite the unknowns.

I too, make a commitment through presence at mass to be more loving, forgiving, understanding, i.e. I experience both metanoia and martyion to the order of Christ, without fully grasping the extent of the Lord’s unconditional love or hope for me. My experience of this order on Earth is a foreshadowing of this new order to be fulfilled in Heaven and/or at the Second Coming.

Reflection Questions: In what ways are you different than you were last year at this time? What has happened in the past year to change your attitudes, motivations or understandings about the Lord, yourself or the world?

Writing Exercise: Retell and explore an experience or situation in which you completed the full cycle of basileia, metanoia, and martyrion.

Art Exercise: Playing with the colors or textures within your preferred medium, represent waiting, and/or the fulfillment of waiting.

Advent 1st Sunday 2014

Is 63:16-19, 64:2-7; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37

In this gospel, Jesus tells us to watch, pay attention, stay awake, ‘don’t miss anything.’ Many describe the longing for the Lord as a desire for “we know not what,” and so we wait for “we know not what.” And while we are forced to pause, our prophet models the honesty warranted, we tell the Lord of our fears that what we wait for will never come to pass, or that we will not recognize it when it does arrive.

Jesus begins this exhortation with a parable about servants waiting for the Master’s return. We, I too, am the house; my faculties, i.e. my will, imagination, perception, reason, memory and intuition are each a servant with specific roles to carry out in the preparations for the Master. Our will operates as the doorkeeper, so I desire, wait and prepare for “I know not what.”

Christ says, “Watch the snow fall, and the quail round the corner of the city apartment building, and the moon shine from a blue sky at 10A; watch the passerby give money to the homeless, and nursing home staff comfort a crying daughter whose father doesn’t recognize her. I’m there. Watch.”

A coworker who came to the US in her twenties from Jamaica told me about the first time she saw snow; she’d seen pictures and heard descriptions but nothing had prepared her for the beauty. She stared out the window as the snow fell for hours. Perhaps watching for the Lord is similar; the Kingdom builds one soul, one snowflake at a time until the faithful blanket the Earth, resembling a field of fresh, pure snow.

In the Interpreters Bible, a commentary I often use, the word ‘theophany’ crops up repeatedly and means ‘the manifestation or appearance of g(G)od to a human.” CS Lewis tells us that the incarnation is the “grand miracle.” Christ exhorting us to witness this miracle of the incarnation, a present day reality due to the Eucharist, on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis.

I too ingest the body and blood. Because He therefore dwells within me, theophany also occurs within my dreams and contemplative experiences, through my feelings and attitudes, in my memories and motivations. I need to observe my interior life with hope and the expectation of theophany. I better pay more attention!

Reflection Question:

What specific roles do your six faculties play for you as you begin to wait for the birth of Jesus? For example, what do you imagine, think about, notice, want, and remember. What insights have you had over the past year that make this Advent season new?

Writing Exercise:
Retell a ‘theophanic’ dream or contemplative experience that you had. Try to tell it in a way that would leave a reader unsure as to whether or not the experience was a conscious or unconscious experience.

Art Exercise:
Represent using your favorite medium a time when you waited for an event or person’s arrival. Try to capture your many emotions through color and textures.

Easter Sunday! 2014

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/042014.cfm

John 20:1-10, (11-18)

The passion narrative is framed by two garden scenes; when Christ is arrested in the garden of Gestheme, He asks the soldiers, “Who are you looking for?” When Christ appears to Mary in the garden after the resurrection He asks her, “Who are you looking for?” While a garden symbolizes new life and harmony, it is planted on purpose and has order and structure. Likewise Christ’s question to us, “Who are you looking for?” frames our beginnings and endings, the moments of transition in our lives.

“Lazarus came out with his grave-clothes on, for he was to use them again; but Christ, rising to an immortal life, came out free from those incumbrances…When we arise from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, we must leave our grave-clothes behind us…” (Matthew Henry). Grave clothes are very similar to everyday dress-up clothes these days, so we must be very mindful, metaphorically, as to what we are actually covering ourselves with. St. Paul makes many lovely references to clothing ourselves in the Light of Christ.

Mary is frightened that the stone over Christ’s tomb was rolled away. We try to bury Christ and put big boulders in His way all the time; He then needs to roll them away, so He can make His presence known. Like Mary, we crave His presence, but panic because He manifests Himself in unexpected ways.

Christ’s appearance after the resurrection is exclusively for his friends, those chosen as his own. On the contrary, His ministry and death are both public. While His post-resurrection Presence is private, it is for the many. Indeed, they rely on each other’s experiences and strengths to understand their personal experiences more completely. Peter is back in the fold and trusted by the other disciples, despite his fall and fear. His courage offers us hope of redemption from our own weaknesses.

Like Peter and John, we may believe in His presence in the world and our lives because we have no other explanation for what we have observed. We may recognize the voice of Christ when he identifies us, as Mary did. The other disciples must wait in hope and joyful expectation because of their trust in Mary, Peter and John’s interpretation of their experiences; we are these disciples at times. In whichever case, Christ told them that He would rise on the third day, but when it occurred, they didn’t comprehend. It is easy to label the disciples as “thick, unbelieving, lacking faith, or otherwise clueless.” It is often difficult, however, to make sense in the moment of what in hindsight seems obvious, or logical. Likewise we often forget what we are told explicitly.

Peter and John come to the tomb, make some observations and declare belief, and leave again. We are told the story of Mary’s interaction with the Risen Lord, with the word ‘meanwhile’ introducing the narrative. This may mean that she was conversing with the angels and Christ with Peter and John present but unaware, or perhaps she stayed behind when they left. Either way, in John’s account she was the first He spoke to and the first who recognized Him. She was able to have this interaction with Him because she remained present (while Peter and John had left.)

The exchange between Mary and the Risen Jesus is characteristic of many a conversation with the Lord. Like Mary, we weep for a loss that is not in fact a loss, but a transformation. She has lost Christ’s body, she is correct, but she has gained His spirit. As in this case, angels and/or other people often ask us the question that Jesus will ask us; i.e. they give us a head’s up. In this case the question is, as it is so often, “Why are you weeping?”

The moment of recognition occurred when He called her by name. Christ identified Mary, which enabled her to recognize His presence. Her response was to identify the relationship they had, and all He was to her. In other words, Christ calls us by name because He knows our souls intimately. We respond to the voice and call of our Lord (the sheep know the Shepherd’s voice), by noting His importance and role in our lives. Jesus has a function in our lives, a purpose; He is our Savior, Teacher, Master, Friend, Brother. Our function to Him, is however, only to be known and loved by Him.

It is fitting that this is the first interaction with the Risen Lord, for indeed, did He not have life and suffer the Passion so we could arise from our own living deaths when He calls us to be one with Himself, Father and the Holy Spirit? And is not this Union with and for us His glory?

Journal Questions:

What I am typically clothed in? In what inappropriate circumstances am I wearing my grave-clothes?

Writing Exercise:

Recount and reflect on a time when you needed to rely on other people’s perception of an event or situation to get a fuller understanding of your own experience.

Creative Arts:

Fabric art- Create “grave clothes.”

Paper art- Play with the images of boulders; What are they blocking? What is set free as they are rolled away.

Home art- Imagine Christ asking you, “Why are you weeping?” How do you respond? Sometimes weeping and bemoaning are our default positions. Strategize ways to establish a different “default.”